I sent a printout of Jim Barger's essay on Armaud Arbery to my Alabama mother who is 87. In return, I got her notes on it which included racist rants as well as a newspaper column with a prayer that included deviants from the "word of the Lord."
I escaped LA (Lower Alabama) but unless 'outsiders' step in, the entrenched racism will rule…
I sent a printout of Jim Barger's essay on Armaud Arbery to my Alabama mother who is 87. In return, I got her notes on it which included racist rants as well as a newspaper column with a prayer that included deviants from the "word of the Lord."
I escaped LA (Lower Alabama) but unless 'outsiders' step in, the entrenched racism will rule the day. My relatives are teaching their children and grandchildren deep racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc., and that culture is not moving. My mother asked, "Did you own slaves? Well, I didn't either." The utter ignorance and abdication of responsibility, of knowledge, of history, of reason, is stunning.
Yes, I know there are evolved folks in the American South, and I also know, up close and personally, that there is endemic, embedded racism. It feeds on the lies of the idjt machine.
Thank you so much, Kim. I’m African American and my mother was born about 50 miles inland from Brunswick. I am more than familiar with this type of tragedy; one of my uncles was lynched. My mother never knew her oldest sibling.
I plan to drop a note to “Brother James” to thank him for his splendid contribution to the upraising of this nation and to the elimination of this sick, morally/spiritually bankrupt culture of ranking by complexion.
This country––this world––cannot afford the evil “luxury” of anti-blackness and graduated criminal “justice” any longer.
His face, even more than his name, eye level or higher. Face to face. Looking me and you in the eye.
Look at me. Your brother.
If you pray, a prayer. To be with him in thought.
Then, a prayer for his killers, for the guilty, everywhere. For all who hate, hated, acted on hate. For the hellbound, for those who cursed themselves.
Oh, Mr. Willis, what tragedy, trauma, injustice, and loss. Brother James is indeed on the required reading list. The rank hypocrisy of the fundamentalists professing Christianity and believing themselves righteous is just repugnant, awful poison. Truly, we cannot afford the evil. And yet...
What a beautiful essay; thanks for posting it Kim. I think what’s important about your story is that YOU know what racism is, and that you won’t spread those ideas to those around you. It’s important every time you bring new ideas that define racism to your family, and even though your family claps back, those ideas will linger in their brains.
Remember in the olden days we used to shudder in horror at the very possibility of "brainwashing". It certainly wasn't anything that would happen here.
Just why, given the damage that he has brought to our shores, is he allowed to remain. Rupert is a foreign parasite, plain and simple, if it was growing on your body like a cancer you would have it removed.
I wrote words I should perhaps not have written, for they shared deep shock. And the moment I had written and moved to post what I had written, they disappeared. Not the first time this has happened.
I wrote, Kim, to thank you for reminding us of Jim Barger’s deep, clean, resonant, heart-to-heart message.
There are words spoken by the great Jewish sage, Hillel, and repeated in the Quran (5:32):
“Whosoever destroys one soul, it is as though he had destroyed the entire world. And whosoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire world.”
A man IS a whole world.
And yet, in America, killing is as normal and unnoticed as breathing. For all that babbling about “the sanctity of life”. At most, we catch a breath, normal breathing soon resumes, and all’s forgotten. And for all the brave ongoing struggle of these Letters from an American to awaken our awareness, I came away from the account of this killing feeling powerless and lost.
“And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9)
Even if our lives are writ in water, may the spreading ripples from those lives be ripples of awareness. May awareness be our monument.
Thanks, Mike, but no, it wasn't that... I moved to press the Post button but at that moment my entire message disappeared.
I had difficulty posting another message shortly after this one and wasn't sure I'd succeeded until I saw it on my phone. The draft was still on my computer. Maybe it's the computer playing up. I've had the impression over the past 20 years or so that every time that I'm completely at ease with a Microsoft product, they scrap it and bring in something worse, when it's not plain awful.
For my own purposes, I've never had anything better than Word XP. I remember that a theoretical physicist I knew felt the same way...
I'm reminded of when I was a kid and American car manufacturers turned out a new model every year... So, even when they made something lovely to look at like the '48 Buick, it was succeeded by a crap design.
As we saw with Manila's Jeepneys and Havana's seemingly everlasting American cars from prehistory, unsafe-at-any-speed may have guzzled gas but was long-lasting...
No, this looks the same as what Jane DoughS reports. In my case WiFi on the phone functioned but my computer's wired up to a modem connected to fibreglass cable.
Thank you for this Kim. Jim Barger has written a stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking essay. His description of ”dayclean” will stay with me.
“But every day the sun rises afresh across our marshes and out across the ocean at the edge of the horizon. The Geechee word for this time of darkness erupting into color and light is “dayclean.”
I hadn’t heard about Jim Barger before, but upon your recommendation, clicked the link… and read the essay in its entirety. What a beautiful, soul-filled and moving piece! I found Barger’s writing elegant, eloquent and engaging. I now have subscribed to The Bitter Southerner’s newsletters. Thank you for sharing this with us, Kim!
Kim, I read Jim Barger's essay quite some time ago and thought about it yesterday after sentencing and wanted to read it again. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the author's name. And here you posted it for all of us. Thank you.
delighted to be of service...what a perfect required read. Blessings upon you, Daria! Several days ago, I posted a comment that I was going to pack my 2000 Subaru and go looking for you and the expatriate community...that may yet happen.
Yes, everyone wants to be special yes? And, in the south, one way that poor white folks can be special is to imagine they are better than poor black folks. This strategy was promulgated by rich white folks who wanted to use blacks as slaves.
But, while slavery is now sort of part of the past, the need to feel special in the poor white community remains. Hence, your grandmother's rant.
LBJ quote “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” I know this to be true.
Finally, a clear explanation for the extremely large, poor white Republiqan base, who continually empty their pockets making donations to a party that loathes them but is happy to take their money; and for why these same poor, white people ultimately vote against their own interests in favor of big business. So sad to see them being fleeced AND making sure that they can never break free from their financial instability.
LBJ spoke of the “lowest white man,” and I think he was right. But recent analysis of the participants arrested for Jan. 6 showed them far above that. Business owners, doctors, architects, etc. My theory about them is they are the kind of people who feel the need to dominate. Co-existing with equals just doesn’t cut it for them. Be top dog or be nothing. It could be they were raised that way, a prime example being our odious ex-president, who told governors during racial justice protests that they must dominate the streets with great force or look like jerks. He showed how when he cleared Lafayette Square with helicopters flying low, etc., and walked to the church where he awkwardly held up a Bible from Ivanka’s purse.
So right, Limbaugh and a zillion big mouth haters have pressed the message ad nauseam. Now it's republican orthodoxy. Ike made the German cult look squarely in the face of their evil, saying to get pictures and collect evidence because in the future, some would deny it ever happened.
Scott, I did not know this song. I'm sitting here in the sunlight, tears streaming down my face. I've been saying for a very long time that Republican power grabbers (who used to be Democrat power grabbers) are experts at riling up their base emotionally so they don't even notice that they are voting against their own interests and that Democrats need to get much better at messaging. Beloved Dylan "said" it so much more powerfully. Thank you, I'm going to work to get this song out to the public again. Blessings,
We are all far, far more than "special", we are EQUAL.
But we don't know what that means.
We don't know what that means, but my mother told me when I was 8, in 1948. And even if I couldn't understand her words then, she made me understand how deeply they mattered:
"We are all the children of the same God."
Even if that last word does not speak to you, the truth that it expresses remains unchanged. There are many ways of expressing truth.
And more than that. This is where the Barger essay cut me to the quick: the tender description of places and things loved and known for centuries by ALL the people born and bred there.
Add the memory of Medgar Evers to our energy getting voting rights legislation passed by the Senate.
As a child in Jim Crow Mississippi, Evers walked 12 miles a day to school. As an 18 year old kid in the Army, Evers fought in Normandy in World War 2. He graduated from college, married, and in 1952, started civil rights organizing with his brother Charles, first for the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), then for the NAACP. He was turned away at gunpoint from voting in an election.
On June 12, 1963, he was assassinated by a member of the KKK, and one year later, Bob Dylan wrote "Only a Pawn in their Game." The murderer was not convicted until until his third trial--in 1994, 31 years later.
So true, and most of them have never left the South. My 7 siblings and I from rural NC are a microcosm of sorts. The half that didn’t stay to stew in the righteous hatred have a whole different take on issues. As one bro said to me after seeing my expression after he used a racial slur ‘guess you didn’t talk like that at NASA.’ Well, no. Most who had similar sentiments chose to keep quiet. Fox was made to order for making those folks the vocal haters they are today. Nixon’s Southern Strategy lives on.
Kim, I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this in such an intimate way. The arguments in favor of anti-diversity, anti-inclusion, and bigotry are always the same: "Well, I didn't do those things so I'm exempt." The growth of the radical right in Germany is playing that tune as to the activities of the Nazis. The struggle for achieving a reckoning continues.
Kim- we moved back to Atlanta in 2018 after living in Seattle for 25 years. It. Was. Shocking. I figured the south would have progressed in that time. No, it was like moving back to GA in 1940. And we are going more and more backward. Strict abortion laws and less and less gun restrictions, and then voting rights are being trampled… I’m sad and disgusted. Oh, and the family I moved back to be near- some of us are no longer on speaking terms. It’s pretty depressing.
As a resident of the Olympic Peninsula, My condolences. It must be so very sad. i'm fearful of ever returning 'home'--I'm certain I would be ostracized if not killed. It is truly no joke. Retard a terre, as the French may say. I used to return every 7 years, as that is the time it takes for a body to regenerate all the cells, but no change, no progress, no enlightenment. Truly depressing.
Agree and empathize totally. You have to think of your safety. Always. Not only because of what it means to you, but also to the ones who love you and who would be devastated if anything happened to you. Remind your friends as well of the responsibility they have to stay safe for the sake of those who love them.
Everyone is always telling me, here and in my family, to drive safely and be safe out there because I drive trucks full-time. The risk I take is inconsequential compared to the risk that you take when you go where you don’t belong. Thank you for not returning. 🙏🙏🙏
I am most appreciative of your understanding, Roland. It means much. My family called me after my father was buried, to tell me he had passed. Not that I would ever want to intrude upon their fundamentalist funeral. But the disrespect is palpable. They didn't want to risk me at their services.
I tried that in 2012, it didn’t work then and I won’t do it again since the orange turd is hero to many. . It’s hard to even have a conversation but I try.
The cult has taken over more and more and cults don’t deprogram themselves. Fox and clones have increased their vitriol, with Joe labeled a parasite, bastard president, and evil. Just the ones I saw in the last week (tee shirt, bumper sticker, and big mouthed old woman). They feed chump’s narcissistic ego and he is in his glory.
I often think of racism in a similar fashion to family addiction. One grandparent after another are alcoholics or druggies or gamblers that shake up and shape a family dynamics. Then you realize that your own father isn't an addict, but he acts like an addict. And, you are then raised in an addict's home. It's a real concept. The same is true with deep racial bias. Your ancestors were slave owners or held the idea that black people are worthless or lesser than your white privilege. It's passed down this racial bias. No, you aren't owning slaves anymore, but you wouldn't mind and you hold the mindset to do it in the southern way.
Christi, actually that is a current theory in psychology and biology: trauma gets into the DNA and is transmitted to future generations. Those of us who are Jews have the millennia of trauma encoded into us; that same is true for enslaved people, colonized people, the victims of assault: all are physically and genetically altered. there is research being done to see if those who enact trauma on others are similarly marked.
Religion plays a role too. Whities were supposed to be the Christians God loved best and they were to take a paternalistic view towards the "lesser tribe." Boy did that get corrupted to a fair thee well. I was gobsmacked when I learned that "picnic" had a connection to the fact that after church, many church people took lunch and went to lynchings. Found a pic of postcard that showed people eating lunch at a lynching. I'm sure my Mom and Dad knew of such but when I asked any questions was told " you don't want to know that old stuff."
So much fear of the "other". It seems your grandmother explains perfectly the attitude of the South. "Did you own slaves? Well, I didn't either." Amazing.
I sent a printout of Jim Barger's essay on Armaud Arbery to my Alabama mother who is 87. In return, I got her notes on it which included racist rants as well as a newspaper column with a prayer that included deviants from the "word of the Lord."
I escaped LA (Lower Alabama) but unless 'outsiders' step in, the entrenched racism will rule the day. My relatives are teaching their children and grandchildren deep racism, misogyny, homophobia, etc., and that culture is not moving. My mother asked, "Did you own slaves? Well, I didn't either." The utter ignorance and abdication of responsibility, of knowledge, of history, of reason, is stunning.
Yes, I know there are evolved folks in the American South, and I also know, up close and personally, that there is endemic, embedded racism. It feeds on the lies of the idjt machine.
Jim Barger's essay:
https://bittersoutherner.com/2020/ahmaud-arbery-holds-us-accountable
Thank you so much, Kim. I’m African American and my mother was born about 50 miles inland from Brunswick. I am more than familiar with this type of tragedy; one of my uncles was lynched. My mother never knew her oldest sibling.
I plan to drop a note to “Brother James” to thank him for his splendid contribution to the upraising of this nation and to the elimination of this sick, morally/spiritually bankrupt culture of ranking by complexion.
This country––this world––cannot afford the evil “luxury” of anti-blackness and graduated criminal “justice” any longer.
Your words make me flinch. We stand with you in love and solidarity.
I wrote the words that follow on November 27th. I wrote in shock. I want to write them again on February 23rd:
IN MEMORIAM — AHMAUD ARBERY
Caught.
Cannot speak.
Cannot remain silent.
How, then?
HOW?
His good face should be everywhere, his good name should be everywhere. Places. Streets. Squares. Towns. Not just in America. Everywhere.
February 23rd must bear that name.
In remembrance of him. In remembrance of the countless innocents murdered like him.
Their faces, lost. His face must stand for them all.
In Europe, they have these "stumbling stones": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein
No sidewalks. And far too small for America.
His face, even more than his name, eye level or higher. Face to face. Looking me and you in the eye.
Look at me. Your brother.
If you pray, a prayer. To be with him in thought.
Then, a prayer for his killers, for the guilty, everywhere. For all who hate, hated, acted on hate. For the hellbound, for those who cursed themselves.
In the end, a prayer—a kind thought—for us all,
Human brothers and sisters.
#
And pardon me for even seeking words.
Yes. His face haunts me. So full of beauty, his pure soul blazing through his eyes.
We needed him to carry his bright light forward. Now we must carry it for him.
His mother’s dignity in grief a testament to love.
Run with Ahmaud.
Diane, I hit the "like" button, but that action means so much more. No words can say it, but you have used words well.
Reconciliation and healing desperately needed, not white-washing. Otherwise, we remain the Divided States of America, or maybe no America at all.
Oh, Mr. Willis, what tragedy, trauma, injustice, and loss. Brother James is indeed on the required reading list. The rank hypocrisy of the fundamentalists professing Christianity and believing themselves righteous is just repugnant, awful poison. Truly, we cannot afford the evil. And yet...
A warm embrace to you and yours.
Bill, blessings to your grandparents and their perseverance. Have you or anyone written your family stories?
What a beautiful essay; thanks for posting it Kim. I think what’s important about your story is that YOU know what racism is, and that you won’t spread those ideas to those around you. It’s important every time you bring new ideas that define racism to your family, and even though your family claps back, those ideas will linger in their brains.
Remember in the olden days we used to shudder in horror at the very possibility of "brainwashing". It certainly wasn't anything that would happen here.
Until Ronnie Imported Rupert onto our shores
Just why, given the damage that he has brought to our shores, is he allowed to remain. Rupert is a foreign parasite, plain and simple, if it was growing on your body like a cancer you would have it removed.
He bought the WSJ, nobody will touch him, Goebbels clone or not.
Horribly apt.
Kim, You are doing the work, spreading the word and giving light, a beautiful mission on the part of all of us. Thank you.
Thanks, Kim. It is heartening to read how Ahmaud's community's actions led the way for justice to finally prevail.
Curious.
I wrote words I should perhaps not have written, for they shared deep shock. And the moment I had written and moved to post what I had written, they disappeared. Not the first time this has happened.
I wrote, Kim, to thank you for reminding us of Jim Barger’s deep, clean, resonant, heart-to-heart message.
There are words spoken by the great Jewish sage, Hillel, and repeated in the Quran (5:32):
“Whosoever destroys one soul, it is as though he had destroyed the entire world. And whosoever saves a life, it is as though he had saved the entire world.”
A man IS a whole world.
And yet, in America, killing is as normal and unnoticed as breathing. For all that babbling about “the sanctity of life”. At most, we catch a breath, normal breathing soon resumes, and all’s forgotten. And for all the brave ongoing struggle of these Letters from an American to awaken our awareness, I came away from the account of this killing feeling powerless and lost.
“And the LORD said unto Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9)
Even if our lives are writ in water, may the spreading ripples from those lives be ripples of awareness. May awareness be our monument.
May awareness be our monument indeed Peter.
Peter, perhaps you did not press the post key before you left the page and came back?
Thanks, Mike, but no, it wasn't that... I moved to press the Post button but at that moment my entire message disappeared.
I had difficulty posting another message shortly after this one and wasn't sure I'd succeeded until I saw it on my phone. The draft was still on my computer. Maybe it's the computer playing up. I've had the impression over the past 20 years or so that every time that I'm completely at ease with a Microsoft product, they scrap it and bring in something worse, when it's not plain awful.
For my own purposes, I've never had anything better than Word XP. I remember that a theoretical physicist I knew felt the same way...
I'm reminded of when I was a kid and American car manufacturers turned out a new model every year... So, even when they made something lovely to look at like the '48 Buick, it was succeeded by a crap design.
As we saw with Manila's Jeepneys and Havana's seemingly everlasting American cars from prehistory, unsafe-at-any-speed may have guzzled gas but was long-lasting...
Excuse the digression frm serious things...
I've kept my old laptop with XP on it. I use it as a table for my present laptop. I loved my XP.
I saved mine, too!
I call that set-up Micro... something else...
XP, yes! And the rest of what you say, Peter.
I had troubles posting last night too. I went to post and it was already there, like a running duplicate.
Hmmm....... are you on WiFi? Maybe it is cutting out.
No, this looks the same as what Jane DoughS reports. In my case WiFi on the phone functioned but my computer's wired up to a modem connected to fibreglass cable.
Thank you for this Kim. Jim Barger has written a stunningly beautiful and heartbreaking essay. His description of ”dayclean” will stay with me.
“But every day the sun rises afresh across our marshes and out across the ocean at the edge of the horizon. The Geechee word for this time of darkness erupting into color and light is “dayclean.”
Thanks, Kim. This is so depressing.
It is, indeed. And, 'tis most important to know what we are up against.
Yes. Know your enemy, a friend of mine used to say.
There are times I wish I didn't know them so well.
Lots to wish I didn’t know. Chump turned them into a cult of hate as bad as KKK. Cults don’t deprogram themselves
Sadly I know them too, Kim.
Ah this. Yeeeessssss.
I hadn’t heard about Jim Barger before, but upon your recommendation, clicked the link… and read the essay in its entirety. What a beautiful, soul-filled and moving piece! I found Barger’s writing elegant, eloquent and engaging. I now have subscribed to The Bitter Southerner’s newsletters. Thank you for sharing this with us, Kim!
Kim, I read Jim Barger's essay quite some time ago and thought about it yesterday after sentencing and wanted to read it again. Unfortunately, I couldn't remember the author's name. And here you posted it for all of us. Thank you.
delighted to be of service...what a perfect required read. Blessings upon you, Daria! Several days ago, I posted a comment that I was going to pack my 2000 Subaru and go looking for you and the expatriate community...that may yet happen.
Come on down! 🌷
It is superb. He's touched the essence of the story, the malicious destruction of innocence and beauty. If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.
Worth circulating again, ty.
Glad to re-read this!
Yes, everyone wants to be special yes? And, in the south, one way that poor white folks can be special is to imagine they are better than poor black folks. This strategy was promulgated by rich white folks who wanted to use blacks as slaves.
But, while slavery is now sort of part of the past, the need to feel special in the poor white community remains. Hence, your grandmother's rant.
LBJ quote “I’ll tell you what’s at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.” I know this to be true.
Finally, a clear explanation for the extremely large, poor white Republiqan base, who continually empty their pockets making donations to a party that loathes them but is happy to take their money; and for why these same poor, white people ultimately vote against their own interests in favor of big business. So sad to see them being fleeced AND making sure that they can never break free from their financial instability.
LBJ spoke of the “lowest white man,” and I think he was right. But recent analysis of the participants arrested for Jan. 6 showed them far above that. Business owners, doctors, architects, etc. My theory about them is they are the kind of people who feel the need to dominate. Co-existing with equals just doesn’t cut it for them. Be top dog or be nothing. It could be they were raised that way, a prime example being our odious ex-president, who told governors during racial justice protests that they must dominate the streets with great force or look like jerks. He showed how when he cleared Lafayette Square with helicopters flying low, etc., and walked to the church where he awkwardly held up a Bible from Ivanka’s purse.
So right, Limbaugh and a zillion big mouth haters have pressed the message ad nauseam. Now it's republican orthodoxy. Ike made the German cult look squarely in the face of their evil, saying to get pictures and collect evidence because in the future, some would deny it ever happened.
This Dylan song, really a poem put to music, expresses exactly what you said. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8X0UmfBwA_U
Scott, I did not know this song. I'm sitting here in the sunlight, tears streaming down my face. I've been saying for a very long time that Republican power grabbers (who used to be Democrat power grabbers) are experts at riling up their base emotionally so they don't even notice that they are voting against their own interests and that Democrats need to get much better at messaging. Beloved Dylan "said" it so much more powerfully. Thank you, I'm going to work to get this song out to the public again. Blessings,
Do we need some aspects of the 60’s back again…. At least the truth-telling part
Maybe we all just need to accept the fact that we are not special and, instead, start treating everyone else as if they are??
We are all far, far more than "special", we are EQUAL.
But we don't know what that means.
We don't know what that means, but my mother told me when I was 8, in 1948. And even if I couldn't understand her words then, she made me understand how deeply they mattered:
"We are all the children of the same God."
Even if that last word does not speak to you, the truth that it expresses remains unchanged. There are many ways of expressing truth.
Also,
We are all the children of the same Earth.
We are all far, far more than "special", we are EQUAL."
GREAT sentence. Thank you.
You don't need God to understand that this is, statistically true.
The mean differences between all our DNA are not much really. Greeen eyes or brown eyes are still eyes.
And more than that. This is where the Barger essay cut me to the quick: the tender description of places and things loved and known for centuries by ALL the people born and bred there.
My brain just went into a tizzy, thinking of the magats as being anything but deplorable.
:-)
That's how white folks in LA feel about blacks though, right?
So, you know what you have to do. :-)
I don't like the way "cut & Paste" reformats this. The Poem (Lyrics)can be found here: https://www.google.com/search?q=only+a+pawn+in+their+game+lyrics&oq=Only+a+Pawn+in+Their+Game+lyrics&aqs=edge.0.0i512l2j0i22i30l3j69i64.6144j0j1&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8
Add the memory of Medgar Evers to our energy getting voting rights legislation passed by the Senate.
As a child in Jim Crow Mississippi, Evers walked 12 miles a day to school. As an 18 year old kid in the Army, Evers fought in Normandy in World War 2. He graduated from college, married, and in 1952, started civil rights organizing with his brother Charles, first for the Regional Council of Negro Leadership (RCNL), then for the NAACP. He was turned away at gunpoint from voting in an election.
On June 12, 1963, he was assassinated by a member of the KKK, and one year later, Bob Dylan wrote "Only a Pawn in their Game." The murderer was not convicted until until his third trial--in 1994, 31 years later.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medgar_Evers
What a message. Thank you.
Oh.
Ah, yes, "Only a Pawn in Their Game." Brilliant.
So true, and most of them have never left the South. My 7 siblings and I from rural NC are a microcosm of sorts. The half that didn’t stay to stew in the righteous hatred have a whole different take on issues. As one bro said to me after seeing my expression after he used a racial slur ‘guess you didn’t talk like that at NASA.’ Well, no. Most who had similar sentiments chose to keep quiet. Fox was made to order for making those folks the vocal haters they are today. Nixon’s Southern Strategy lives on.
"...endemic, embedded racism." Up close and personal. It is this that stains the moral fabric of our culture.
Historical fear and loathing of the "other." Rejecting the obvious truth that the other is us.
Kim, I'm so sorry you are having to deal with this in such an intimate way. The arguments in favor of anti-diversity, anti-inclusion, and bigotry are always the same: "Well, I didn't do those things so I'm exempt." The growth of the radical right in Germany is playing that tune as to the activities of the Nazis. The struggle for achieving a reckoning continues.
Kim- we moved back to Atlanta in 2018 after living in Seattle for 25 years. It. Was. Shocking. I figured the south would have progressed in that time. No, it was like moving back to GA in 1940. And we are going more and more backward. Strict abortion laws and less and less gun restrictions, and then voting rights are being trampled… I’m sad and disgusted. Oh, and the family I moved back to be near- some of us are no longer on speaking terms. It’s pretty depressing.
As a resident of the Olympic Peninsula, My condolences. It must be so very sad. i'm fearful of ever returning 'home'--I'm certain I would be ostracized if not killed. It is truly no joke. Retard a terre, as the French may say. I used to return every 7 years, as that is the time it takes for a body to regenerate all the cells, but no change, no progress, no enlightenment. Truly depressing.
Agree and empathize totally. You have to think of your safety. Always. Not only because of what it means to you, but also to the ones who love you and who would be devastated if anything happened to you. Remind your friends as well of the responsibility they have to stay safe for the sake of those who love them.
Everyone is always telling me, here and in my family, to drive safely and be safe out there because I drive trucks full-time. The risk I take is inconsequential compared to the risk that you take when you go where you don’t belong. Thank you for not returning. 🙏🙏🙏
I am most appreciative of your understanding, Roland. It means much. My family called me after my father was buried, to tell me he had passed. Not that I would ever want to intrude upon their fundamentalist funeral. But the disrespect is palpable. They didn't want to risk me at their services.
So, yes, stay safe. One's life is precious.
I tried that in 2012, it didn’t work then and I won’t do it again since the orange turd is hero to many. . It’s hard to even have a conversation but I try.
So sad...
The cult has taken over more and more and cults don’t deprogram themselves. Fox and clones have increased their vitriol, with Joe labeled a parasite, bastard president, and evil. Just the ones I saw in the last week (tee shirt, bumper sticker, and big mouthed old woman). They feed chump’s narcissistic ego and he is in his glory.
Sharon I am so sorry you are going through that.
I often think of racism in a similar fashion to family addiction. One grandparent after another are alcoholics or druggies or gamblers that shake up and shape a family dynamics. Then you realize that your own father isn't an addict, but he acts like an addict. And, you are then raised in an addict's home. It's a real concept. The same is true with deep racial bias. Your ancestors were slave owners or held the idea that black people are worthless or lesser than your white privilege. It's passed down this racial bias. No, you aren't owning slaves anymore, but you wouldn't mind and you hold the mindset to do it in the southern way.
Christi, actually that is a current theory in psychology and biology: trauma gets into the DNA and is transmitted to future generations. Those of us who are Jews have the millennia of trauma encoded into us; that same is true for enslaved people, colonized people, the victims of assault: all are physically and genetically altered. there is research being done to see if those who enact trauma on others are similarly marked.
do we dare try to understand. White "supremacists" think they already know who really matters
Religion plays a role too. Whities were supposed to be the Christians God loved best and they were to take a paternalistic view towards the "lesser tribe." Boy did that get corrupted to a fair thee well. I was gobsmacked when I learned that "picnic" had a connection to the fact that after church, many church people took lunch and went to lynchings. Found a pic of postcard that showed people eating lunch at a lynching. I'm sure my Mom and Dad knew of such but when I asked any questions was told " you don't want to know that old stuff."
Interesting, but nausea-inducing.
I want to retch
It is retch-worthy. And it is real. Thank you for your unwavering stance in support of equality, Roland. You represent the hope of this country.
So much fear of the "other". It seems your grandmother explains perfectly the attitude of the South. "Did you own slaves? Well, I didn't either." Amazing.